Detection of Adulterants and Contaminants in Liquid Foods-A Review

Milk and fruit juices have paramount importance in human diet. Increasing demand of these liquid foods has made them vulnerable to economic adulteration during processing and in supply chain. Adulterants are difficult to detect by consumers and thus necessitating the requirement of rapid, accurate and sensitive detection. The potential adulterants in milk and fruit juices and their limits set by different regulatory bodies have been briefly described in this review. Potential advantages and limitations of various techniques such as physicochemical methods, chromatography, immunoassays, molecular, electrical, spectroscopy with chemometrics, electronic nose, and biosensors have been described. Spectroscopy in combination with chemometrics has shown potential for rapid, precise, and sensitive detection of potential adulterants in these liquid foods.